What troubles me here is that they are translating "Ministerio" as "Department"; while in the US it is the DEPARTMENT blahblahblah, it still should be translated as its actual name: The MINISTRY.....
At times Duo is SO literal and others it is really off the mark.

Technically no, they are not the same. All attorneys are lawyers but not all lawyers are attorneys. A person who has study law and have a Juris Doctor or similar degree is a lawyer. A lawyer that has passed the bar, and thus can practice is an attorney.
My uncle Vinny became an attorney when he passed the bar.
And your Uncle Obama is a constitucional lawyer.

They are the same in the U.S. At one time in one could read for the bar, as they called it, pass the bar exam and become an attorney/lawyer. But that is no longer permitted, one must graduate from a law school before taking the bar exam to become a lawyer/attorney. The two terms are interchangeable, like doctor and physician are.

Well, to back up a step, you wouldn't actually call this the Gerund tense in Spanish so much as the Present Progressive. You use the Gerund (turning a verb into an adjective) in Spanish to form the Present progressive. In order to say the sentence you want, it would look like this: «La abogada es trabajando para el Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores». In Spanish you use «estar» in most cases, though there are some exceptions that are better detailed here: http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/COURSES/GERUND.HTM